Author Sylvia Dickey Smith

Today, we welcome best-selling author, Sylvia Dickey Smith. She writes the Sidra Smart mystery series. Her series is set in Southeast Texas in the area where Sylvia herself grew up. That area of Texas is unique in its mix of people, from Cajuns to Dutch descendants to the Scots-Irish. As you might guess, her books are filled with lively characters and the area itself becomes something of a character.

She has three books out starring Sidra Smart. The first was called Dance on His Grave. The second is Deadly Sins Deadly Secrets. And her most current book is Dead Wreckoning. Sylvia says the focus of her writing is on “the strengths and weaknesses of middle-aged and older women finding their way and developing a strong identity of their own.” This is certainly true of this series. This is how Sylvia describes her protagonist:

Sidra Smart, a detective in Orange, Texas, battles wounds of her own past and learns that when the cause is just, she never retreats--despite the odds.

For her visit today on Straight From Hel, she’s agreed to answer a few questions of mine. And I agreed to answer hers. We decided to talk about the editing process. Afterward, if you have questions for either of us, ask away in the comment section.

Hello Sylvia! Welcome.

(Sylvia’s going to ask the first question, then we’ll alternate.)

Sylvia: When you first looked at DEAD WRECKONING, did you throw up your hands and say, what have I gotten myself into? :-)

Helen: It’s a good thing you put that little smiley face in your question, ‘cause that’s what I did. I smiled and said to myself, this is gonna be different and fun. Sidra gets pulled into situations she doesn’t necessarily want to be in, but once she’s involved, she goes all out. There’s mystery, a bit of humor and a touch of the paranormal, i.e. ghosts.

Helen: How about from your point of view, Sylvia -- When you decided to work with an editor on DEAD WRECKONING, what were you looking for or expecting from me?

Sylvia: When I approached you about editing DEAD WRECKONING I had a couple of things I really wanted you to address. My first two books had more typos and grammatical errors in it than made me comfortable. I know no book is totally error free. However, I wanted as many eyes looking at this manuscript before it went to press as I could get. One grammatical mistake I consistently make is comma placement. When a sentence looks like it doesn't have enough commas, I sprinkle in a few. Then, on the flip side, if it looks like it has too many I take out a few. Seriously, I know that is not the proper way to make that decision--but at times it seems that's my best shot!

I will say right up front, I am not an English major. I accept my shortcomings in that area. So why not go to someone who is skilled at doing so! It was worth what it cost me.

Second, I wanted you to check my plot lines, my red herrings, my clues sprinkled throughout. I don't write simple plots. They tend to get rather involved. I wanted you to unravel my plots and insure that I left no loose ends.


Sylvia: What did you think about the novel overall? Did you feel like I was wise in choosing to have it edited?

Helen: Your novel didn’t need a lot of line editing. I work on some manuscripts that do. Once or twice, I’ve finished an edit and felt bad because I knew once I sent it back, the writer would be shocked by all the marks. But DEAD WRECKONING was pretty polished by the time you sent it to me.

Having said that, yes, I think you were right to send it to me. What we were able to work on were things like starting the book off strong, drawing your readers into the story right away; pacing so that the momentum doesn’t drag; and catching glitches in the plot or timeline. It helps to have someone say, this is where you should begin the book, or who is this character? or the reader is going to get lost in all this technical stuff.

Helen: Did you get what you expected and how did you feel when you first opened the edited manuscript?

Sylvia: Oh yes. You did an excellent job finding my errors and giving me feedback on plot lines. As far as what I felt when I opened the edited manuscript--actually pleased that you didn't find more errors than you did! DEAD WRECKONING ended up stronger and better.

Sylvia: What advice would you give an author such as myself regarding editing, and taking the advice and make the changes suggested?

Helen: When you get your manuscript back from your editor, do NOT click “accept all changes.” Above all, this is your book.

Read the edits, taking breaks if you need to. Mark the ones you’re going to have to think about. Maybe you aren’t sure how to address them. Maybe you’re not sure you need to make a change there. Maybe it requires a major change and you’re not sure you’re ready or willing to tackle it. Accept the edits you right-away agree with. Then work on the others.


Helen: How did you decide what advice, comments, or edits to accept and what to ignore?

Sylvia: The most difficult advice you gave me, that I ending up taking, was to cut the first four or five pages of the manuscript. That scene took place out in the swamp with an old woman named Boo Murphy climbing up on a resurrected pirate schooner. Her imagination carried her back to the 1700s, riding a sailing vessel with pirate Calico Jack Rackam and her ancestor, Anne Bonny. Truly 'my darling', and I killed it! Your suggested that the strong scene and Boo's character, overshadowed my protagonist, Sidra Smart. I knew you were correct and went with your advice.

Sylvia: What advice would you give authors regarding editing and proof reading?

Helen: Do as much as you can before sending it to an editor. And if you don’t send it to an editor, do your own work before sending it to an agent, a publisher, or publishing it yourself. If you can’t afford a professional editor, then join a critique group in your local area or online - you’ll get help, you’ll help others, and you’ll learn how to edit and critique. Agents are not taking on as many clients as before. Publishers are tightening their catalog lists and looking to celebrity authors or authors with a platform. You have to have a clean, as well as unique, manuscript.


Helen: Sylvia, tell us a bit about Sidra Smart and DEAD WRECKONING. What do you think makes her unique as a PI and as a person? How does Sidra grow as a person in this latest book?

Sylvia: Sidra is not your typical private eye. For one, she started the career at fifty. Pastor's wives certainly don't normally divorce their preacher-husbands and then take on a life involved in crime and shady characters. Well, on second thought, maybe some do, but certainly not Sidra. Her adult life had been spent in the almost cloistered walls of her title and the parsonage. Before her brother died, she wasn't even aware that world existed. She doesn't dress sexy and spend half the day running around town in high heels. Tired of spending time in front of the mirror fixing her hair, she chops it off herself with a pair of pinking shears. She's a woman experiencing her teenage crisis along with a midlife crisis. Before now, she didn't know who she was or what she stood for except for those beliefs given by a controlling spouse. Now, each case brings her closer to the woman she'd buried deep inside herself so long ago.

What makes her unique as a person is her strength to walk away from a life that no longer works for her, turning her back on a world that placed her up on a pedestal but required that she live under the microscope of religious edicts and meaningless clichés that turned sour in her mouth.

Thank you, Sylvia, for sharing with us today!

You can find out more about Sylvia Dickey Smith and her books, including her short story, "Divorcing God," in the anthology, The Story That Must Be Told: True Tales of Transformation, Vol. I.

Also, check out her events page to find out where you can catch her in person. Sylvia is having a Recipe Contest that you’ll want to look into while you’re there. (I’m thinking of submitting my recipe for Reindeer Droppings.) And as you browse around her site, click where you see the words “Sassy Pickles.”

Now, the Comments section is open. Ask Sylvia questions about her books, writing, or maybe Aunt Annie.

Book Royalties

Royalties are this big mystery to writers. Seriously. You think you’ll get this royalty statement and it’ll all make sense. Not!

Well, finally, we have an explanation. I found it, oddly enough, on Twitter. Not the explanation -- it’s definitely not something that can be deciphered in 140 characters or less. What I came across are links to two blogs, one by author Lynn Viehl and a follow-up by agent Jennifer Rappaport. (Thank you @Maya_Reynolds for sending out the links.)

You’ll want to go read both. I suggest you read Lynn Viehl’s first, then Jennifer Rappaport’s.

Viehl is a best-selling author. She had made a promise that if she ever hit the top 20 of the New York Times mass market bestseller list, she would share all the information about the book. And she does that, from the initial print run, to the (little) promotion she does, to her advance, to expenses, to how much her agent received, to her royalty statement.

Why did she do this?

In Publishing telling the truth about earnings smashes the illusions publishers and writers want you to believe and, like breaking mirrors, it never brings you good luck. Thing is, when I was a rookie I wanted to know exactly what it took to have a top twenty Times bestselling novel, because that was such a big deal to writers. Everyone I asked gave me a different answer, told me a bunch of nonsense, or couldn’t/wouldn’t tell me at all. For that reason I want you to see the hard figures, and know the reality, and the next time someone asks you what it takes, you can tell them the truth.

Once you’ve finished reading her post, click over to Rappaport’s analysis of Viehl’s royalty statement. Jenny Rappaport is not Lynn Viehl’s agent, but she definitely knows how to dissect a statement. She tells us what is meant by US Regular Sales, discounted copies, US Regular Returns, Export Sales and Returns, Reverse Against Returns, and BOOKSPAN subsidiary right sale.

Bet you thought a royalty statement would be easy to untangle, didn’t you?

Here’s a snippet of her explanation about returned books:

For every book returned, as you can see on the royalty statement, the publisher did not pay Ms. Viehl any money. This makes sense from an accounting standpoint, since the publisher had to pay the booksellers back the money they had purchased the book with, and therefore didn't really "sell" it.

If you want to see the actual royalty statement, click here.

Shoot, I’ll go buy Viehl’s latest book just to acknowledge her for posting her statement! And kudos to Rappaport for taking the time to explain the terminology and ins and outs of a statement.

Dead Wreckoning

If you haven’t met Sylvia Dickey Smith or read the latest book in her Sidra Smart mystery series, Dead Wreckoning, then you’re in for a treat this Thursday when she stops in at Straight From Hel.

Sylvia says her writing “focuses on the strengths and weaknesses of middle-aged and older women finding their way and developing a strong identity of their own.” I say Sylvia writes characters that you can identify with and characters you’ll want to read about.

The first in the series, Dance on His Grave, introduced us to Sidra Smart, a woman, recently divorced, who takes over her brother’s detective agency. It’s no coincidence that the name of her new agency is the Third Eye, as each of Sylvia’s books, as she says, “embraces the possibility of help from spirits beyond this world without hitting the skeptical reader over the head with it.” If you like strong female characters, tense action scenes, and a dose of humor, you’ll like the Sidra Smart series.

Sylvia is a friend, so when she agreed to drop by, she suggested we do something different from an interview or the usual Q&A. So I invite you all to come back this Thursday for an unusual Q&A. Sylvia and I will be talking about the editing process. She has a few questions for me … and I have some for her … and, hopefully, you’ll have some for both of us.

Check out her beautiful website, as well as her books. And she’s also having a contest -- you can submit a recipe for her cookbook. I told you she doesn’t go for the “usual,” not even in her give-aways.

The Debate Over E-Books

If you’re not a publisher or a bookseller, you may have missed knowing the London Book Fair was going on. A book fair, including the Book Expo America, does more than just highlight books. It also is a chance for publishers to meet and talk. Sometimes that takes place over lunch or coffee. Sometimes in panels.

The London Book Fair had a standing room only crowd at one such panel discussion, according to Publishers Weekly.

Heads of some of Britain’s largest and most powerful publishing houses entered into a heated hour-long discussion, all of them of the mind that e-books can’t be ignored, but differing in their ways of dealing with the pitfalls of e-books, namely piracy and pricing.

Some speakers, like Gail Rebuck, chairman and CEO of Random House Group, were fans of e-books. Some, like Tim Hely-Hutchinson, CEO of Hachette Livre UK, were less so. But when it came to a discussion of piracy, there was a lot of discussion. And even more so when the topic turned to pricing.

“We need to adapt our thinking about payment” said [Penguin Group chairman and CEO John] Makinson, who is of the mind that publishers are “short-changing authors” if they don’t price e-books the same as physical books.

But I thought one of the best quotes came in the Comments section, by a publisher from SMCNally HerStory Books:

We are amazed that anyone is still having this debate! We have been selling romance ebooks online successfully since 1996. … And yet here we are with the same old tired discussions about whether or not ebooks are here to stay? Some of the people we have partnered with have gone by the wayside, some authors too, but those of us still standing after 13 years can attest to the fact that the readers get what they want, the writers can actually get a better royalty. Why? Because the publisher does not need to worry about printing, inventory, warehousing, pick, pack, ship, demurrage, returns, shelf room, back orders, shipping overseas, dealing with individual customers who have to wait days for a book to come in the mail, etc etc. Customers get what they want instantly, and on a reader, in a safe and secure format Publishers can then spend the money which would be involved in all the aspects involved with a physical book, as mentioned above, on paying better royalties, and on marketing in the new online media, particularly Web 2.0. …

Visual Writing Prompt

During my last visit to San Francisco, I took pictures of what I thought were some interesting things. This is one:

It’s a statue. It’s a water fountain. It felt like a maze of sorts.

To give you an idea of its size...if you look closely, you'll see my son back in the shadows in the fountain, off center on the right. My son is 6'10".

The statue intrigued me, so I took a picture of it. I think it’s a cool statue/fountain and I wonder about the person who thought it up.

How did he or she come up with the idea? Did he oversee the construction? Did she have to make adjustments as it was put together? How many versions did he draw out before deciding on this one? How old was she when she came up with the idea? Was he formally trained? Who influenced him? Does she ever come back and look at her creation? What else has this artist created?

What do you think about this fountain/statue?

Speed Bump Ahead

Here on Straight From Hel we’ve talked before about how publishers have a tendency to give huge advances to “name” authors or celebrities. They’re betting these names will bring in tons of readers, enough to make back that advance and more. Then, to make sure they get people buying these books they’ve invested so much in, publishers put more bucks behind promoting them. New and lesser known authors get much, much smaller advances because they don’t have a platform to draw in the book buyers. And they get little to no help in promotion because they aren’t expected to sell that well and because the authors are expected to work their connections and the Internet to build a platform.

Which brings me to Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code) and his upcoming book in the series. The book’s working title was: The Solomon Key. But it will be released on September 15th as The Lost Symbol. This is the third book in the series starring symbologist Robert Langdon.

The initial print run is expected to be 5 million copies - the largest ever in the history of Doubleday/Random House. The book release will come on the heels of the May 15th debut of the movie Angels & Demons, based on Brown’s prequel to The Da Vinci Code.

With an initial print run of 5 million copies, it’s clear Doubleday expects The Lost Symbol to be a mega seller. Brown gets a hefty advance, Doubleday sells books, bookstores sell books, readers buy books.

So where’s the speed bump in this success vehicle? Looks like it’ll be right there in the bookstores, who may turn out to be the losers. In their efforts to get readers back into the stores, they’re discounting The Lost Symbol big time.

The Wall Street Journal reported:

Barnes & Noble Inc., the largest bookstore chain in the U.S., began taking pre-orders for the book Monday. It priced the $28.95 title at $17.37 for general readers, a 40% discount. The store's club members will pay only $15.63.
At Borders Group Inc., the U.S.'s No. 2 bookstore chain, Kathryn Popoff, vice president of merchandising for adult trade books, indicated that they'll follow suit. "It will be very competitively priced," she said.

Of course, that’s good news for those of us wanting to snag a copy. But not so good for independent booksellers who can’t afford to eat the losses from selling the book at such a deep discount.

The discount competition is especially hard on small stores. One independent bookseller said she expects the discounting will be so intense at price clubs, book chains, and online that she will sell only 50 copies in the first two weeks.

I know there are some who feel that if the independents can’t compete, then they should go out of business. Each time one near me disappears, though, I miss it. I miss the owners who intimately know the books and authors, who know their customers and what they like to read, who promote local authors and neighborhood events, who email you when a book comes in that they think you’ll like, who greet you by name.

And I’ll miss the midlist authors who can’t get the publicity push that Brown is getting. And who won’t get anywhere near the sales. And who face being dropped from a publisher’s list in favor of Tori Spelling or Britney Spears or the Goo Goo Dolls.

Start Off Strong

Have you ever been looking for something to eat and get your choices narrowed down to one, only to take the first bite and be disappointed? It’s okay, but sort of bland. You can take it or leave it. Have you had the opposite experience? Your first bite is delicious. You want more. You keep eating. Smiling while you chew. Eating until it’s all gone. Disappointed when you’re done. Thinking maybe you’ll get some more of that. Mmm.

I’m not talking about dark chocolate covered pomegranates. I’m talking books.

That first bite a reader takes of your book can decide whether they keep reading or set it down and look for something more enticing. It can decide whether they look for another book by you or go on to their next author on their to-be-read list.

Most of us have short attention spans, also called very busy lives. We have to be pulled in by the first words in a book, or by the end of the first chapter at the latest. Hook ‘em or lose ‘em. That doesn’t have to mean a death or tossing us into the middle of a firefight or a sex scene. It means whetting our appetites, showing us this will be an interesting book or an amazing character or a fabulous locale.

Books do not start off as slowly as they used to. Readers have too many choices, too little time, and too many distractions.

Think about your beginnings. Work on them. Do you want to serve your readers bland white bread or dark chocolate covered pomegranate bites?

Man, I knew I should not have gotten out that bag to see how to spell “pomegranate.” Curses on those delicious little brown devils!

Chester Campbell, Author

Chester Campbell’s latest book is called The Surest Poison and features PI Sid Chance, a former National Parks ranger whose career as a small town police chief was cut short by malicious accusations of bribery. This is Chester’s first book in this series. He writes a second series featuring Greg McKenzie, a retired Air Force investigator, and his wife. There are already four books in the McKenzie series.

Chester lives in Tennessee and is active in the local chapters of both Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America. He first started writing when he was in the Army Air Force and a fellow cadet mentioned that he wanted to study journalism. Chester knew a good idea when he heard one. That idea took him from work as a newspaper reporter, freelance writer, magazine editor, political speechwriter, advertising copywriter, public relations professional and association executive, all the way to novelist.

Now he’s here to advise us on electronic book rights.

Welcome Chester!

Electronic Rights to Books
By Chester Campbell

Electronic rights to books are becoming more valuable as the availability of ebook readers and methods of downloading titles rapidly increases. The big guys are still Amazon’s Kindle and what Sony calls its Reader Digital Book, but there are many others around, some with Wi-Fi capability. Mobipocket supports many mobile phone operating systems, allowing you to read while standing it line at the grocery.

What’s the outlook for the future? Some in the publishing industry still see ebooks as a fad, but Steve Haber, who developed the Sony Reader, disagrees. He told the Fast Company on-line magazine:

"E-book readers will largely dominate the industry, and it could happen in less than 10 years. Every time I give a Reader to someone to test, I never get it back. It's just like when TiVo or digital cameras came out. At first, people didn't know they needed it. But once they have it, they can't live without it.”

He said the technology shift was the same as when camcorders went from film to digital. “When we introduced our Reader, the biggest resistance I heard was, 'I like the smell of books, and I like the smell of paper. I can't go digital.' That was the confirmation for me that this change will happen. If the smell of paper is the biggest push back, then we're good to go."

So what to do about the electronic rights to your books? Adler & Robins Books, a book packager, has an excellent discussion of the subject. They recommend you retain control of e-rights as much as possible. I’m with a small press and kept all of my electronic rights, which allows me to make my books available for the Kindle and any other ebook reading device.

If you’re with a larger publisher, you may not have that option. But here’s what The Authors Guild has to say about it:

“If your publisher insists on an upfront, outright grant of electronic rights, insert contractual language requiring the publisher to negotiate royalty and Subsidiary Rights licensing splits with you immediately prior to the planned exploitation or licensing of electronic rights.

“The royalty rate your publisher proposes to pay if it publishes its own electronic edition of your book should be enumerated in the Royalties clause of your contract. If your publisher licenses electronic rights to another publisher, your share of the fee should be enumerated in the Subsidiary Rights clause of your contract. Although electronic publishing is still an evolving industry without clear standards, not long ago, Random House announced an intention to evenly split ebook sales revenue with authors. Before this announcement, Random House had been offering authors royalties of no more than 15% of the retail price of an ebook. Many other publishers, including Harper Collins, have started to offer a 50-50 split of net proceeds also. Therefore, you should negotiate to receive no less.”

If you own your electronic rights, you can also sell them to a publisher that specializes in ebooks. Some authors who’ve had a problem getting interest in their manuscripts from traditional publishers or agents go that route first. It can be a springboard to a print publication. E-publishers pay royalties of 30 to 50 percent of list price.

Another caution most advisors give is if your publisher insists on getting electronic rights, you insist on defining out-of-print precisely. Otherwise, they can sell an ebook occasionally and say your book is still in print. Your rights should revert back to you if a specific number of books is not sold in a year’s time.

According to industry buzz, Barnes & Noble is considering its own ebook reader. So are some traditional publishers, including those that currently print newspaper and magazines. Best take a close look at your own situation and be sure you’re ready for a bigger boom in digital publishing.

Which reminds me, I need to upload my new book, The Surest Poison, to the Kindle site.

Thank you Chester.

Chester will be checking in today to answer questions and say hi back to those who comment. Speaking of commenting -- have any of you retained your E-rights? If not, do you wish you had?

I’ll start off the questions for Chester by asking…. I saw in your website FAQ that you were an aviation cadet in the Army Air Forces. Where in the heck were you last month when I was interviewing people for my book on Avionics?!

12 Steps to Publishing Success

On Monday, Publishers Weekly published an article by Jonathan Karp called, “This is Your Wake-up Call: 12 Steps to Better Book Publishing.” Definitely worth reading.

You’ll read what an insider has to say about what’s wrong with the publishing world and what he thinks should be done. Karp makes some very good points.

He starts by saying that if you want to know what is hurting the publishing industry, go to the bookstore and look at the titles.

On sale now: A History of Cannibalism. Illustrated! A gift book! The subtitle is stupendously, kaleidoscopically all-encompassing: From Ancient Cultures to Survival Stories and Modern Psychopaths….Then there are the arcane books, the ones that dare to be obscure on the assumption that if people will read about cod, or oranges, anything is possible. Who could resist a history of the potato, titled, of course, Potato. Amazingly, this wasn't the only work available on the subject. There's also The Potato: How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World. Wasn't it intellectually responsible of the publisher to limit the scope of the subtitle to the Western world?

His conclusion:

We are acquiring and publishing too many books. We buy them opportunistically, and at times thoughtlessly. We edit and launch them too quickly. We market them carelessly and ephemerally. Too often, we abdicate our responsibility to be filters, guides, guardians and gatekeepers. And now, as in many other industries, we are suffering the effects.

But Karp doesn’t stop with just stating the problems. He gives solutions - 12 of them. Most are directed at those on the publishing side, but they, of course, affect writers. They’re interesting and insightful. But there was one that greatly affects the writer:

Pay authors to market their work
We all know that one of the big functions of today's in-house marketing professional is to explain why the publisher can't afford to do much marketing. So who has the money? Authors, from the advances we pay them. Publishers should contractually require that a part of the advance be allocated to marketing and promotional efforts supervised by the author. Publishers, of course, must also do their important marketing work. But authors usually write the best promotional copy (they're writers, after all), and they certainly know their readership best. Yet they are underutilized in the publishing process. Empower them.
Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin's Three Cups of Tea, for example, has been sustained by a dynamic author and a multi-year speaking tour, and the hit Twilight series has greatly benefited from Stephenie Meyer's extensive online promotional efforts. At Hachette, I've had a peripheral view of the Twilight phenomenon. It began with an astute, passionate editor and publisher named Megan Tingley, who read the manuscript on an airplane, and made a pre-emptive three-book deal. The readership built gradually, and with the help of much inventive in-house marketing. But everyone within Hachette points to the author as the driving factor in the books' success.

Go read the full article. This one will probably get a lot of buzz.

Author Chester Campbell

This Thursday, author Chester Campbell stops by Straight From Hel to talk about electronic book rights, what the future is for writers in this area, and how he kept the electronic rights to his books. It ought to be a very informative day.

Chester is the author of two mystery series featuring private investigators. His first series stars retired Air Force investigator, Greg McKenzie. His latest series features Sid Chance and the first book, now available, is called The Surest Poison.

To promote The Surest Poison, Chester has embarked on a blog book tour. If you’re not already following him, check out the tour schedule and hop on his train.

He writes, he blogs, he tours. And he talks with us about maintaining the electronic rights to your books -- right here this Thursday. Come back with questions!

Synopsis of The Surest Poison
By Chester Campbell

Three seemingly unrelated murders crop up during the investigation of a decade-old chemical dump that plagues a rural community west of Nashville. PI Sid Chance, a former National Parks ranger whose career as a small town police chief was cut short by malicious accusations of bribery, pursues the case after being coaxed out of self-imposed exile by Jaz LeMieux, a wealthy ex-cop. Is the man responsible for the pollution dead or alive? Who is having Sid tailed and threatened? When Jaz helps with the investigation, she is awakened by an explosion behind her mansion. Is it related to the abduction of her housekeeper’s grandson, or Sid’s case? As they unravel a hidden conspiracy that used murder to silence witnesses, Sid finds himself confronting the unsavory people responsible for his past troubles.

A New Split

I came upon a short piece, a press release really, about HarperStudio’s new split of funds with authors. The article comes out in the May issue of Fast Company, yet it wasn’t really new news. HarperStudio, an imprint of HarperCollins, is going to offer authors 50-50 profit sharing. This new business model differs from the standard in which authors usually get around 7 to 15 percent of the royalty.

What caught my eye was HarperStudio’s plans to use technology to encourage author participation in promotion and encourage sales. One thing they did was give their authors (they only plan to publish two books a month) Flip cameras and “asked them to start video blogging, opening up their writing process and cultivating an audience as soon as a book is acquired.” All authors have to start promoting themselves and their book as soon as they sign on, if not before. This may give them encouragement and support to do that.

But here’s the nudge from HarperStudio that caught my eye:

We're looking at multimedia packaging, such as including a DVD of Isabella Rossellini's Green Porno films along with her new photo book.

Hmm. A bonus package.

Sunday’s Visual Writing Prompt

Last Sunday, I started this thread of posting pictures I’ve taken that some of you might want to use as a visual writing prompt. I thought I’d do it again. Last week it was a picture of a red leaved tree in our backyard.

Today, it’s flowers. Specifically, flowers growing on the arbor leading to our garden.

My husband likes to garden. I like to pick tomatoes. First he built a three-level garden. Then he built the arbor, including a wonderful bench to sit on. He planted trumpet vines and has been training them to grow up and over the top. Each year, we get more flowers. They don’t last long, but they’re spectacular. This year, he’s putting in a sink in the garden and I’m composting.



But enough about what we’re doing. Here’s a close-up of some of our Spring flowers.

Overcoming Rejection

Today, over on The Blood-Red Pencil, I’m blogging about believing in yourself. I’m talking to writers, but it applies to everyone. You have to believe in yourself and what you’re doing. If you experience a set-back, you can take a moment to re-group, then you have to get up and move forward. Don’t beat yourself up. You can’t get out of a hole if you dig a deeper pit.

Writers have a tough time. When an agent, an editor, a critique partner, a reader, or whoever doesn’t like our work or rejects our query, it’s hard not to take it personally. They’re rejecting our very words and thoughts. It feels as though they’re rejecting us.

Have you felt the sting of rejection? What have you done to get over it?

Tell us here, then drop by The Blood-Red Pencil and share your technique(s) to climb out of the pit and start again.

What’s Done is Done

How do you decide that your manuscript is done? I don’t mean “done” as in writing “The End.” How do you say, that’s it, I will not re-read it one more time, I will not edit it again? Is it only when you hold it, bound, ISBNed, with your picture on the back flap? Is it done then?

I recently turned in the manuscript for a nonfiction book I wrote for TSTC Publishing. That’s recently, as in day before yesterday. I was done.

Oh, I wasn’t through reading it. I wasn’t through editing it. I could have kept on doing that many more times. I was through because I had a deadline. I was through because I was determined to get it in before the deadline -- one day early, to be exact. I was through because I knew I no longer was making big changes. I was tinkering, changing a word here or there, adding links and back of the book resources.

I could have kept tinkering with it. But I stopped. I had a deadline, both from the publisher and from myself. I know plenty of authors who work their butts off on a book, only to see it in print and wish they could go back and change something. Maybe even a majority of authors experience that. Maybe, for the author, done is never done.

And, yet, it has to be. There has to be a “done” point. What is yours?

Christine and Ethan Rose

The picture to the left is one of Christine and Ethan Rose, authors of the award-winning YA fantasy novel, Rowan of the Wood. With its combination of suspense, action, wizards and vampires, Rowan of the Wood has been getting excellent reviews. It also was a finalist for the National Best Books 2008 Award for Young Adult Novel. If you’d like to find out more about their book, be sure you take a look at the trailer.

Christine is not only an author, she’s an artist and an independent filmmaker, with two films under her belt. Her first film had its theatrical premiere in Paris. You can check out her creds on IMDb.

If Ethan’s not writing, you can probably find him with a book in one hand and a hammer in the other, since he’s a carpenter by trade.

Both Ethan and Christine love to travel. And they are definitely traveling around promoting Rowan of the Wood. Check out their wheels, which they call the Geekalicious Gypsy Caravan.

Ethan’s doing the post today, but Christine will also be available to answer questions.

Welcome Ethan and Christine.

Writing as a Career
by Ethan Rose

Ever since my days as an incorrigible fourth grade troublemaker, I knew that I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. If I couldn’t manage it, before. I even asked for a typewriter for Christmas, so I could produce submission-quality manuscripts. What I received was a Playschool machine which, though it actually put letters on paper, only had upper case capabilities. It did seem to produce a more dramatic product but was not what I was looking for.

I wanted to be published.

It wasn’t so much the fame and fortune, or even being the babe-magnet that authors tend to be, it was simply my inevitable fate. I read books. If asked for a single defining aspect for me, anyone who knew me would say without hesitation that I was a reader. It was what I was known for. Writing for me, and I assume for others with a similar affliction, is an extension of reading. It is the next step, a higher literary plane of existence where an anti-social behavior becomes socially relevant.

Little did I know at the time that being a writer is a lot like being an actor. For every movie star there are thousands of actors waiting tables. In the same way, when people hear “writer,” the image often conjured up is of a starving recluse scribbling away in a garret while piling up mountains of words that no one wants to read except a few pompous academic esotericists.

On the other hand, there are writers like Stephen King and Stephanie Meyer who could sell anything with their name on it, regardless of quality. The question is how does one get from the garret to the bestseller list? What is the secret to writing success?

Well, I would tell you, but that would allow you to compete with me more effectively. Besides if there is a secret, I don’t know it. What I do see as necessary is a combination of hard work, endless hours of marketing, luck, skill, determination, and visibility.

Luck is really the awareness to seize upon opportunities which present themselves. Determination and hard work are what create those opportunities. Skill is a writer’s craft, the voice of the manuscript. This is what will make a reader seek out more of an author’s work. Visibility is what will make an author famous.

So write well, be visible, work hard and you might get lucky enough to make a living.

What a wonderful career.

Thank you so much, Ethan.

Remember the picture of Ethan and Christine at the top of this post? Check out this one.

Before I open the comments box, I’d like to suggest that everyone go buy Rowan of the Wood. It’s available on Amazon and via Kindle. And you can definitely find it at Barnes & Noble, since Christine and Ethan were February’s Authors of the Month in all the Austin-area Barnes & Nobles. And if you’re not already following them on Twitter, do that!

And remember to sign up for the contest!

Don’t zip away without leaving a howdy or a question -- and you can click the little Tweety bird to tweet Ethan’s post.

Book Advances

The New York Times had an article this past Friday about book advances in today’s economy. If you’re an author, you probably would rather not hear the bad news -- publishers are losing money, agents are cutting back on meetings with editors, mid-list authors are being cut, advances are down…

Well, then, you might want to read this article.

Once minuscule, some advances have escalated into the millions, like the $5 million Scribner paid last month for Audrey Niffenegger’s second novel, “Her Fearful Symmetry.”

Yet despite the economic downturn, and the fact that 7 out of 10 titles do not earn back their advance, the system doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. In recent interviews, a dozen New York-based publishers and agents told me, more or less, “Publishers have to keep buying books,” and “They have to bid for the best books” — which in large part means those that will sell.
In exchange for low-five-figure advances, the boutique press McSweeney’s, founded by Eggers, shares profits with its authors 50-50, as does the new imprint Harper Studio, which offers sub-six-figure advances.

But before you start smiling at the “good” news, here’s some other quotes from the article:

Take a reported six-figure advance, Roy Blount Jr., the president of the Authors Guild, said in an e-mail message. “That may mean $100,000, minus 15 percent agent’s commission and self-employment tax, and if we’re comparing it to a salary let us recall (a) that it does not include any fringes like a desk, let alone health insurance, and (b) that the book might take two years to write and three years to get published. . . . So a six-figure advance, while in my experience gratefully received, is not necessarily enough, in itself, for most adults to live on.”

In the preface to “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius,” Dave Eggers broke form by telling the reader he received $100,000 for the manuscript, which — after his detailed expenses — netted him $39,567.68.

The article is quite interesting. Zip over and read it. But, first, what do you think about the changes taking place in the world of publishing?

Rowan of the Wood

On Thursday, authors Christine and Ethan Rose will stop by Straight From Hel. Ethan is going to tell us about his path to writing, and both Ethan and Christine will be available to answer questions and say hi to everyone.

Their award-winning book is Rowan of the Wood, a young-adult fantasy that moves from the past to the present, from wizards to vampires. Rowan of the Wood was a National Best Books 2008 Awards Finalist and was nominated for ForeWord Magazine’s 2008 Best Book Awards.

Here’s a bit about the book:
After a millennium of imprisonment in his magic wand, an ancient wizard possesses the young boy who released him. When danger is nigh, he emerges from the frightened child to set things right. Both he and the boy try to grasp what has happened to them only to discover a deeper problem. Somehow the wizard’s bride from the ancient past has survived and become something evil.

You can find out more about Rowan of the Wood at: http://www.rowanofthewood.com

Not only are Ethan and Christine stopping by to visit with us, they’re running a contest with great prizes and about a gazillion ways to up your chances of winning.

The contest will run from April 6 - 17th, during Rowan’s Beltane Blog Book Tour.

Winners announced on April 20th on their blogTV show LIVE at 1pm CST and posted on their blog that same day.

The Grand Prize of this Geekalicious Contest is a $100 Barnes & Nobles gift card.

First Place: $25 Barnes & Noble gift card

Second Place: Framed LE signed Green Man art print, from one of Christine’s paintings

Third Place: Handmade by Christine dragon pen holder & quill

Signed copies of Rowan of the Wood will be given away at various hosting blogs during the blog tour.

Be sure you come back this Thursday to visit with Ethan and Christine Rose.

Be An Agent for a Day

Curtis Brown agent Nathan Bransford is holding a contest. He calls it the “Be An Agent for a Day” contest. If you’re a writer who struggles with writing the query letter, you’ll want to zip over to his blog and track this contest. Today at 8 a.m. he starts posting the entries. You don’t have to be one of the contestants to win since you get to read the entries and see what the Agents for a Day say about them.

For those participating as “agents,” here’s what they have to do:

You will read and respond to as many queries as you can. You will have one week to respond to all 50 queries. You can draft your own rejection letter and manuscript request letter (personalized or non-personalized, your choice), which you will paste in the comments section of each query. You might even provide some specific feedback to try and help the author if you're feeling extra conscientious.
You may request no more than five manuscripts, because hey, you're not going to have time for your clients if you request more than five manuscripts for every 50 queries.

They have one week to respond to 50 queries (chosen from hundreds and hundred and hundreds submitted). Those people who have submitted queries that Nathan chose to use will get to see what is said and what their requested/rejected stats are.

And Nathan has thrown in a bit of a twist. Some of the queries are for books which actually sold. We’ll get to see how the “apprentice” agents responded to those.

So zip over and see the queries rolling in over the day. And then bookmark Nathan’s site so you can track this contest.

Visual Writing Prompt

I love to take pictures. I’m not a professional, not even all that good as a matter of fact, but I still like to snap away. After downloading some from my camera, I got to thinking that pictures can be a means of prompting ideas, of giving you a visual way of thinking of something to write. With that in mind, I thought I’d post a Sunday Visual Writing Prompt.

This one was taken back in November. I live in central Texas and usually we don’t get much of a winter, let alone a Fall. This past year has been a heavy drought for us, though. Between the drought and some cool weather, we had some beautiful changes in the foliage. This is a normally green tree in the back yard. I was shocked to look outside one day and see this. It’s had some red leaves before, but this, for us, was spectacular. It reminded me of the trees I saw in Vermont while at the Vermont Studio Center during my residency there.

Perhaps it will inspire some ideas in some of you.

Happy Sunday Visual Writing Prompt Day. And, of course, Happy Easter.

The Rumpus Room

The LA Times has an interesting article/interview with editor Stephen Elliott. It’s quite long, but interesting. Elliott is the author of seven books and the founding editor of the Rumpus, an online literary and culture magazine. The Los Angeles times calls it a magazine with “a bite.”

After looking around the Internet, he decided there was too much garbage out there. He decided he would start something different. To him, that means featuring literary writers who are not being noticed by all the other places and papers.

But, before you zip over to the Rumpus, you should know that it’s not all literary book talk. The writers also talk about music, art, politics and sex. If you do go over and like what you see, here’s a quote you might find interesting:

The Rumpus is a great place for younger writers. For one thing, we edit. We'll work with a writer to make his or her writing better. Younger writers often come in with fantastic ideas and essays full of energy and needing a little guidance.

Critique Groups

If you're a writer who has been working alone, at your computer, on your manuscript, you may reach a point where you begin to wonder if you should have others look at your book.

You may be at the phase where you need a critique group.

Or you may not be.

Before you begin searching for a group, you need to ask yourself if you're ready to hand over your words to others and have them, not just read it, but discuss it, mark up your pages, and tell you what they think you're doing wrong. (And, hopefully, what you're doing right.)

Will you be able to handle that? Can you sit and listen without trying to argue or defend? Can you do that week after week?

Are you ready to read the work of others in your group and give them constructive criticism? A critique group is a two-way process. You take advice; you give advice. Do you have the time to critique the work of others in the group. You can't just get advice on your book, then walk away.

Do you have the time to meet with the group every week or once a month or however often they meet. You're making a commitment when you join a critique group.

Are you ready to share more than just your comments on their writing? In most cases, a critique group ends up being more than just discussion on someone's work. Members share tips and advice on writing. They share information they've found out about agents or conferences. You're joining a tight knit group that helps each other in more areas than just the pages submitted each week.

But most of all, are you ready to take the criticism? These are not your family members or best friends. Their job is to keep it real and give you their best advice. It's not always easy to take.

New News

I thought today I’d give you some quotes from the world of publishing news.

Here’s one on ebook sales that came out of New York via Marketwire:

The Association of American Publishers (AAP) reported last week that eBook sales represent the fastest growing segment of the industry while US book sales are in decline across all major book publishing markets.

eBook sales are skyrocketing as we head into 2009. Reported eBook sales figures for January 2009 alone grew by more than 170% over January 2008.

From an article on self-publishing in the Wall Street Journal, we have:

"We know that 411,000 new books were published with ISBN numbers in 2007, and a significant number of those were do-it-yourself authors."

Back in February, PaidContent.org had this to say about “crowd-sourcing”:

Author James Patterson has “crowd-sourced” his new book Airborne. Patterson, who has pumped out a number of best-selling crime novels, wrote only the first and last sections of the new 30-chapter novel; publishers Borders Australia and Random House held a contest to find 28 writers to pen the rest of it.

And, finally, this from an article in The New York Times about author Scott Turrow’s decision to switch hardcover publishers:

Gail Hochman, Mr. Turow’s agent, said splitting editions between two houses made it more difficult for an author to achieve the best possible financial arrangement. “We’re not unhappy with anything we’ve gotten, but it stretches the boundaries of the business,” she said. “Any publisher will acknowledge that if they are going to pay a significant advance for a significant author, they can make their money back and work harder on the book if they have two editions.”

That’s all the New News for today.

Arranging Your Work Day

How and when do you work? Some of us have jobs outside of the home. Some of us have jobs inside the home. I work from home. What used to be a spare bedroom is now my office (except when company comes, then my office is a corner in our bedroom with a folding table and a lamp).

I think one problem with working from home is that you work pretty much all the time. When I get up, the first thing I do is carry the dog downstairs (she’s too old to come down by herself anymore) and take her out. I then turn on my computer and my day has started. If I don’t get too caught up in something, I’ll take a break at 7 to watch the opening of the morning national news to catch the headlines, then I try to watch the full 30 minutes of the 5:30 evening news.

I’ve figured out that if there’s an evening show on that I want to watch, I can instead listen while I do things on the computer.

I keep an ongoing To-Do list and cross things off as I get them done. I enjoy taking the pencil and marking through them. I switch from project to project. I might do an hour or two editing work, then stop so I can let what I’ve read simmer. Then I’ll do a couple of hours on my own book (which has a looming due date of April 15th). Then I may take on work that I do for a national company. Then back to editing and so on.

I do some work on weekends, but spend more time relaxing, cleaning house, checking the garden, and doing my most horrific chore, grocery shopping. I need to switch that chore to a weekday. I could write a long litany of things I hate about going to the grocery store on the weekends.

What about you? When do you find time to write? How do you squeeze it in? What about all your other writing-related activities, like promotion on Twitter and other social sites, networking with other writers, contacting media, editing, blogging, and on and on.

What is a typical day like for you?

Explain This

Somebody explain this to me.

For the past week or so, every day I’ve been getting one or two Anonymous spam comments on Straight From Hel. It’s in some weird symbols or code. It makes no sense. It’s not spam advertisements. It’s just spam.

What’s the purpose?

As soon as I find one of the offensive nonsensical comments, I go in and delete. It’s not difficult to do. What’s difficult is figuring out why someone or something posts them. Do they make sense in some odd language? Do other “bots” understand them? What do they say in their odd language or computer code?

I’m probably going to have to go behind the scenes and put those annoying squiggly letters that a legitimate person has to decipher before they can comment on Straight From Hel. I’d rather not do that. But just deleting the spam doesn’t seem to have any effect.

It’s a strange world when people or their auto bots do things just to annoy others. They spam or cyber attack or system crash or manipulate or virus infect or Twitter jam. Who wastes their lives doing such things? And why are others having to waste their time and energy fighting or avoiding them?

Remember the days when spam was a meat product and the most annoying trick you could play was calling someone and asking, Do you have Prince Albert in a can?

Susan Wittig Albert

If you were following author Susan Wittig Albert’s recent virtual book tour, then you know she stopped by Straight From Hel. You may have missed her since she was doing something quite unique. She went on a tour by re-visiting blogs she’d visited before and did re-posts by directing her tour followers to past stops on each blog.

With that in mind, if you missed her stop here, you can still read her wonderful post where she talks about setting. Susan’s China Bayles series is usually set in a small central Texas town. In her latest book called Wormwood, the 17th in the series, China leaves Texas to visit Kentucky. It’s here that Susan creates another memorable setting, as she carries us into the past and the Shaker community that once lived there. The community and their lives become vivid and compelling. You want to keep reading so you can find out what happens to them, as well as how China can solve the mystery in the present time. Both worlds are tied together in Wormwood.

So, link over and read her post on Setting, then look for Wormwood in your bookstore.

But if your name is Tim Brown, you won’t have to buy her latest mystery. You’ve won a free advance reading copy. But you only have until noon today to claim your copy of Wormwood!

The Nibbies

The Nibbies are the U.K.’s answer to the U.S.’s Oscars, except The Nibbies are given to books, not movies. The actual name is the British Book Awards. This year, Americans took two honors.

President Barak Obama’s memoir, “Dreams From My Father,” was declared the Tesco Biography of the Year.

Obama was also in the running for Borders Author of the Year, but lost to Aravind Adiga, who wrote “The White Tiger.”

Stephenie Meyer won the WHSmith Children’s Book of the Year for “Breaking Dawn,” the latest installment in her best-selling series about the trials of a teenage girl who falls for the charms of a vampire.

Other winning authors included Michael Palin, who walked away with the Outstanding Achievement Award, and Sebastian Faulks, who collected the Sainsbury’s Popular Fiction Award for his James Bond takeoff, “Devil May Care.”

Stieg Larsson, the late Swedish author, won the Books Direct Crime Thriller of the Year award with “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.”

Tom Rob Smith became the Waterstone’s New Writer of the Year for his best-selling debut, “Child 44,” the story of a child-killing serial murderer in Stalinist Russia.

“The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher,” Kate Summerscale’s real- life whodunit about an 1860 country-house murder, captured both the Play.com Popular Non-Fiction Award and top award, the Galaxy Book of the Year.

Congrats to all.

(To read a full write-up on the big event and to find out why they awards are called The Nibbies, check out the article in Bloomberg.)

Wow

Consider this movie plot: An unknown who doesn’t read books gets a huge advance from a major publisher to write ten books. Pfft. Not likely.

Except, of course, it’s true. According to the Wall Street Journal,

HarperStudio has signed a seven-figure, 10-book deal with Gary Vaynerchuk, a 33-year-old Belarusian-born wine retailer from New Jersey, who, except for a talk show appearance here and there, is basically unknown in mainstream media circles.

He’s not a writer. Doesn’t even read books. So how does a guy like that get such an offer. What does he have? He has a platform. The Wall Street Journal says:

But in the world of the Internet, he is a Twitter phenom, with 145,000 followers hanging on his every tweet. What began as a daily video blog about wine has become a self-help, business-advice juggernaut, with "Garyvee" as chief engineer.

And he does seem to have special powers of persuasion: the first time he visited the Harper offices, sources say, he wowed the troops by sitting down at the computer and tweeting about the HarperStudio blog, The 26th Story; the group then watched in real time as thousands of people descended upon that blog.

Now, you might think, okay, seven figures split over ten books, that’s not like way over the top, even for a relatively unknown. Here’s what SmartBrief had to say about his deal:

Gary Vaynerchuk, host of the Wine Library TV" video blog, has turned personal branding into an art form. Now comes word that he has signed a 10-book publishing deal worth at least $100,000 per book. But here's the kicker: Vaynerchuk has negotiated a 50-50 revenue-sharing deal with publisher HarperStudio, giving him a bigger stake in the books' success. In the staid book-publishing industry, Vaynerchuk's contract could be the start of an entrepreneurial revolution.

I say, Wow. Wow. Wow.

Setting Aside a Book

Have you ever started a book but just couldn't finish it? Maybe the subject matter made your blood boil. Maybe the characters were off-putting. Maybe it was too much gore or perhaps not enough blood and guts. Maybe it was just plain bad writing.

There can be a lot of reasons. But what is that point at which you say, this is enough, I can't read this anymore?

I reached that point recently. I see the book right now - it's sitting on a side table in my office, bookmark still in it, waiting for me to pick it back up. But I don't think I will.

I quit reading not for any of the reasons I said above - well, maybe the blood boiling part. I just could not take the author's depictions of Southerners. I am one. Born in Georgia, raised in Texas.

I used to hate the TV shows where the stupid policemen had Southern accents. Never New York accents (if they had that, they were most like a mob character). The Southerners were always the fat, slow, dumb characters. Grr. I feel my blood boiling right now.

This book, a huge best-seller, brings it all back. Southern women acting stupid and readers believing that represents the South. What makes it worse is this is presented as non-fiction, tongue in cheek, aren't we cute!

What this all boils down to is, in your fiction, make your characters believable. You can put some regionalism in, but don't depend on stereotypes. Deep down, we are more alike than unalike, whether we're from Alabama or Indiana, India or Afghanistan.

Multimedia Publishing

In today’s issue of Doing It Write, I use an article called “The New Storytelling: Multimedia Children’s Publishing” for the “In Case You Missed This” section of the newsletter. I found the Publishers Weekly article so interesting, I thought I’d blog about it today.

Lisa Holton started a new book packaging company called Fourth Story Media. Her idea is to take the book well beyond print. If she can do it, and it looks like she may well be able to, both publishers and writers will be happy. Holton is no neophyte. She’s the past president of Scholastic Trade. Now, she’s at the helm of “a deep multimedia YA series called The Amanda Project that HarperCollins is launching this fall.”

She’s focusing on kids because they’re more likely to accept books delivered in multiple formats.

The series, which she calls a “Rashomon-style” tale, follows a high schooler named Amanda who, after showing up as the new girl in town, disappears. Each book, penned by a different author (à la 39 Clues), is written from the point-of-view of a different student—all part of an enclave searching for Amanda. The online component—built heavily around girls' interest in social networking and creating their own content—is the fascinating part. Readers can go to an ancillary Web site to discuss (and create) potential fates for Amanda, and HarperCollins plans to publish storylines contributed by readers.

The meticulously designed look of the site along with the depth of its functionality—it will allow users to create online alter egos, to blog and to create and share artwork, among other things—is the product of many hands, including Web developer Happy Cog, and various designers, coders and architects.

Holton spent the last year of her life, she says, researching the possibilities, including attending game conferences.

She sees her company as a conduit for publishers that want multimedia properties but don't know how to bring them in-house or build complex digital add-ons.

We’ll see how many publishers will embrace the new technology. It’s expensive, so the payoff will have to be worth it.

Loglines

A logline is a VERY short description of a script. It’s not used much for books, although some writers will include a version of a logline in their query letter. Since it’s a good exercise for writers, novelists should try their hands at writing a logline. It'll force you to get to the core of your book, to the nugget that will excite an agent, lure a publisher, and sell a reader.

In general, a logline should be about 20 words long and should capture your storyline.

The problem is that you rarely see actually loglines that short! Here's one I saw as a sample on ScriptShark:

A college freshman girl's arrival to campus spawns mysterious killings revolving around the football team.

Okay, from that we know the protagonist, where it takes place, and that it's probably horror ("mysterious killings", "spawns"). But we don't know what the protag's goal is or who the antagonist is. It fits the word count, but, in my mind, it's not complete.

Here are a couple of more (and I'm sorry to say that I've forgotten where I gathered these):

A playboy manufacturer rescues 1,100 Jews from certain death. Appalled by atrocities in Nazi Germany, he hoodwinks the Nazi brass and converts his factory into a refuge for Jews. Based on Oskar Schindler's true story.

A conscientious sheriff relinquishes his gun and job to marry a pacifist young woman, but on the way to the honeymoon they pass a band of outlaws riding toward their peaceful village to take it over.

Both of those are over 20 words and the second sample only implies the goal. But both are compelling and would be hard for someone to pass up. (And they didn't, since they're both produced movies.)

It's good to include the protagonist (and goal), antagonist (and goal), and the big disaster or turning point. But it doesn't have to be straightforward.

Screenwriters often take their script and condense it into a 10 page synopsis, then squeeze that to 3 pages, then 3 paragraphs, then 20 words. Give it a try on your book. And remember, make it irresistible and complete.

No problem. Right?